Judah's Priest.

[John D. Brey]

The idea in the context of this thread is that Jacob's claim that all of his other sons will bow at the feet of a scion of Judah implies that for some rather strange reason, a son, in the line of Judah, Jesse, David, will be born without the evil-inclination such that he doesn't have to subjugate it or annihilate it in himself, but only to destroy its power over his brothers and sisters who though they may be attempting to subjugate and annihilate it, are in truth, merely sublimating and negotiating with it while it rules over them and eventually and inevitably causes their demise.

If Psalms 110 is a Psalm of David, i.e., written by David, and if, as it appears, it's speaking of some kind of divine son of David who's united with the Lord in a manner mostly rejected by modern Judaism (though rabbis like Daniel Boyarin claim it hasn't always been that way in Judaism), then the divine, or miraculous, nature of the birth of this scion of David might account for this son of Judah being born without the contamination that's being labeled an inborn birth-defect. In this sense, he could be like both the high-priest who offers a sacrifice without spot, blemish, or defect, as well as, as the Zohar toys with, being the sacrifice itself, himself. Rather than offering a living body that symbolizes no birth-defect, no spot, or blemish (as is the case with the sacrificial offering), this uniquely born son of Judah might fulfill his high priestly office by offering up himself on the altar as the only son of Adam miraculously born without spot, blemish, or birth-defect.

In the Jewish rituals, the high-priest must be circumcised, cleansed with blood, immersed in the mikveh, such that, ritually, symbolically, he is himself, like the sacrifice, without spot or blemish. Ritually speaking, the Adamic-defect he acquired at birth is ritually, the mikveh, brit milah, the cleansing of blood, removed prior to his ritual rendition of entering into the precinct of heaven (the most holy place of the temple).

The Zohar goes so far as to note, or at least claim, that the golden cord that ties the sacrifice to the altar prior to its sacrifice is removed from the sacrifice and tied to the ankle of the kohen gadol so that if he dies in the most holy place of the temple he can be removed without anyone having to go in after him. The Zohar toys, earnestly and tenderly, with the idea that this tying of the golden cord to the high priest has symbolic import that might transgress normative Jewish thought even as it lends itself to exegesis of Psalm 110.

All of this segues into this discussion, and particularly Psalms 110, since in that very scripture the divine son (if that's what he is) is said to be a priest forever, and a king too, in the order of Melchizedek.



John

 

[John D. Brey]

If Psalms 110 is a Psalm of David, i.e., written by David, and if, as it appears, it's speaking of some kind of divine son of David who's united with the Lord in a manner mostly rejected by modern Judaism (though rabbis like Daniel Boyarin claim it hasn't always been that way in Judaism), then the divine, or miraculous, nature of the birth of this scion of David might account for this son of Judah being born without the contamination that's being labeled an inborn birth-defect. In this sense, he could be like both the high-priest who offers a sacrifice without spot, blemish, or defect, as well as, as the Zohar toys with, being the sacrifice itself, himself. Rather than offering a living body that symbolizes no birth-defect, no spot, or blemish (as is the case with the sacrificial offering), this uniquely born son of Judah might fulfill his high priestly office by offering up himself on the altar as the only son of Adam miraculously born without spot, blemish, or birth-defect.

In the Jewish rituals, the high-priest must be circumcised, cleansed with blood, immersed in the mikveh, such that, ritually, symbolically, he is himself, like the sacrifice, without spot or blemish.

The Zohar goes so far as to note, or at least claim, that the golden cord that ties the sacrifice to the altar prior to its sacrifice is removed from the sacrifice and tied to the ankle of the kohen gadol so that if he dies in the most holy place of the temple he can be removed without anyone having to go in after him. The Zohar toys, earnestly and tenderly, with the idea that this tying of the golden cord to the high priest has symbolic import that might transgress normative Jewish thought.

All of this segues into this discussion, and particularly Psalms 110, since in that very scripture the divine son (if that's what he is) is said to be a priest forever, and a king, in the order of Melchizedek.

In Keil and Delitzsch's commentary, they point out that although in some sense Israel was said to be a kingdom of priests, and in some sense David clearly fulfilled general priestly functions, nevertheless, the text of Psalms 110 is specific in comparing the son of Judah in the passage (Psalms 110) not with a general priestly function, or with the generality of priests, but with Melchizedek specifically. This is important since Melchizedek, king of Salem, was genuinely a king, and genuinely a high-priest able to, and in fact participating in the sacrificial offering.

If David were the person addressed, the declaration would stand in antagonism with the right of Melchizedek as priest recorded in Gen. ch. xiv., which, according to the indisputable representation of the Epistle to the Hebrews, was equal in compass to the Levitico-Aaronic right, and, since "after the manner of" requires a coincident reciprocal relation, in antagonism to itself also.​

Unlike Melchizedek, David never offered the sacrifice in the temple. He never was a priest in the order of Melchizedek.

Zechariah removes the fulfillment of the Psalm [110] out of the Old Testament present, with its blunt separation between monarchical and hierarchical dignity, into the domain of the future, and refers it to Jahve's Branch (צמח) that is to come. He, who will build the true temple of God, satisfactorily unites in his one person the priestly with the kingly office, which were at that time assigned to Joshua the high priest and Zerubbabel the prince.​

The problem these facts present, would, should it be solved, go a long way toward clarifying the topic at hand: how can the scion of Judah be a genuine high priest, in the order of Melchizedek and Aaron (and nevertheless be a son of Abraham, and Jacob, through Judah) without interfering with, or cancelling out, the high-priestly function of the sons of Levi, through Aaron (which is expressly, and undeniably, an everlasting priesthood)?



John

 

[John D. Brey]

The problem these facts present, would, should it be solved, go a long way toward clarifying the topic at hand: how can the scion of Judah be a genuine high priest, in the order of Melchizedek and Aaron (and nevertheless be a son of Abraham, and Jacob, through Judah) without interfering with, or cancelling out, the high-priestly function of the sons of Levi, through Aaron (which is expressly, and undeniably, an everlasting priesthood)?

This question takes us into some uncharted exegetical territory so far as Psalms 110 is concerned. The Psalm makes the scion of Judah, through David, i.e., Messiah, a high-priest after the order of Melchizedek. But by emphasizing that his priesthood is like Melchizedek's, it's also claiming that it's like the Levitical kohen gadol (except that in the case of Melchizedek and Messiah, they're both kings as well as functioning high-priests).

It's the similarity of Melchizedek's high priesthood to the Levitical order of the kohen gadol that eliminates David from the equation. Many, if not most, Jewish exegetes know this. Their Gordian knot is ours: neither David nor his son, even if that son be Jesus, can be a high priest in Israel so long as the Levitical priesthood is functional; and God promises it will be functional (exempting times of exile) forever.

Since Messiah regathers Israel, or comes at or during the final regathering of Israel from the ends of the earth, it can't be the case that his own high-priestly function operates simultaneous to the Levitical priesthood and particularly the kohen gadol of that priesthood since being back in the holy land, and under the renewing of the covenant, they will be back in the business that is the Levitical offerings and all the activities related to the temple and the priesthood. Which brings us to the strangeness of verse 6 of the Psalm:

He shall one day judge the cadaverous among the nations, after He will have cleft the head that commands over the mighty land.

The Hirsch Tehillim, Psalm 110:6.​

Here's the King James translation of the same verse:

He shall judge among the heathen, he shall fill the places with the dead He shall wound the heads over many countries.​

Neither of these interpretations or translations is true or literal to the Hebrew text. The literal text causes as many problems for the exegete as does calling Messiah a high priest in the order of Melchizedek and Aaron. Except that correcting the strangeness of the literal Hebrew of this verse (110:6) solves the problem of Messiah's high priesthood.



John

 

[John D. Brey]

Neither of these interpretations or translations is true or literal to the Hebrew text. The literal text causes as many problems for the exegete as does calling Messiah a high priest in the order of Melchizedek and Aaron. Except that correcting the strangeness of the literal Hebrew of this verse (110:6) solves the problem of Messiah's high priesthood.

The primary problem in correctly interpreting the Hebrew of Psalms 110:6 is stated by Rabbi Samson Hirsch:

מלא גויות cannot very well be interpreted as the predicate of the subject to which ידין refers. For even if we might conceive of a judgment in terms of blood and horror, we could hardly say of a judge that he is "filled with corpses" or "cadaverous" in that sense of the word.​

As Rabbi Hirsch and the experts in Hebrew grammar know, Psalms 110:6 implies that the person doing the judging ידין is being said to be filled with, or accompanied by מלא, cadavers or corpses גויות. Rabbi Hirsch wonders out loud how it can be meaning what it says. Surely, he says, it must mean something else.

Ibn Ezra, as anyone familiar with him knows, has more stubbornness and fortitude in the face of exegetical problems, than almost any other Jewish exegete. So unlike Rabbi Hirsch, Ibn Ezra interprets as it reads:

HE WILL JUDGE . . . The word asher (who) is missing [from our text].​

Filwarg, in his supercommentary on Ibn Ezra's exegesis, says that Ibn Ezra is implying that in strict Hebrew exegesis, the text "should be read as if it were written asher male geviyot (He who is filled with bodies); that is, He who possesses hosts of heaven and on earth." According to Filwarg, Ibn Ezra is claiming that it's not "corpses" or "cadavers" that accompany the Messianic judge, but rather heavenly bodies, a host from heaven.

In the Tanakh, the Hebrew word ---גויה-- is used exclusively for corpses/cadavers or heavenly bodies, i.e., angels, or Ezekiel describing the divine image/body he saw in the temple. Based on context, and the fact that they don't know why this human king should be accompanied by a heavenly host, the interpreters decide that they must force-fit "corpses or cadavers" into the text even though as Rabbi Hirsch notes the text is then made to imply that the scion of Judah is filled with, or accompanied by, corpses and cadavers. As fate would have it, the declension of the word used here is a hapax. It's found declined this way (גויות) nowhere else in the Tanakh, such that:

Our verse should be understood as follows: "God will judge among the nations. He that has bodies ---that is, the One who has a great host ---will execute judgment upon the nations."

Ibn Ezra.​

As a footnote, the footnotes to Ibn Ezra's interpretation of Psalms 110:6 claim the word גויה is used at least once, Genesis 47:18, to speak of a "body" other than a corpse or a heavenly personage. But careful exegesis of Genesis 47:18 makes it evident that even there, the word is being used to speak of dead bodies, and not a mere body count as might be suspected. This is important since in Psalms 110:6 the word is either discussing corpses, i.e., dead bodies (which is difficult to imply because of the grammar) or else heavenly bodies. It is not implying that Messiah is armed and ready to execute divine judgment with a human army; he's either armed with corpses and skeleton warriors, or heavenly beings.



John

 

[John D. Brey]

As a footnote, the footnotes to Ibn Ezra's interpretation of Psalms 110:6 claim the word גויה is used at least once, Genesis 47:18, to speak of a "body" other than a corpse or a heavenly personage. But careful exegesis of Genesis 47:18 makes it evident that even there, the word is being used to speak of dead bodies, and not a mere body count as might be suspected. This is important since in Psalms 110:6 the word is either discussing corpses, i.e., dead bodies (which is difficult to imply because of the grammar) or else heavenly bodies. It is not implying that Messiah is armed and ready to execute divine judgment with a human army; he's either armed with corpses and skeleton warriors, or heavenly beings.

Determining who these heavenly warriors accompanying Messiah are requires going back to Psalms 110:3:

Moreover one does not, after ver. 3a, look for any further declaration concerning the nature of the king, but of his people who place themselves at his service. The young men are likened to dew which gently descends upon the king out of the womb (uterus) of the morning . . . הדרת קדש is the vestment of the priest for performing divine service: the Levite singers went forth before the army in "holy attire" . . . it is a priestly people which he leads forth to holy battle, just as in Apoc. xix. 14 heavenly armies follow the Logos of God upon white horses . . ..

Keil and Delitzsch.​

The armies at the right hand of Messiah are neither soldiers, nor skeletons or corpses, but heavenly priests. Their battle armor noted in Psalm 110:3 is הדרת קדש, the vestment of the priest. And not just any priest. It's the vestment of the Levitical high priest, the kohen gadol, to include the "chosen" חשן, being worn not by a singular high priest (as required in the Levitical order), but by all the priests of Zion accompanying the messianic king. At Psalm 132:46, Rabbi Hirsch points out that the priest of Zion are said to wear, all of them, the "ornament of Salvation," which Rabbi Hirsch tells us is the garment not of the ordinary priest, but of the high priest alone. All the priests of the heavenly city of Zion are equivalent to the kohen gadol of the Levitical priesthood (see Rabbi Hirsch's commentary at Psalms 132:46 in The Hirsch Tehillim).

Even as Messiah is being compared to Melchizedek who was a high priest and a king combined, his army are being compared, all of them, to the kohen gadol of the Levitical priesthood such that the exegete of these things begins to wonder if both Messiah and his army of priests are coming directly from heavenly Zion, by way of death itself (and resurrection), since the garment of the kohen gadol of the Levitical order of priest was his passport into the most holy place of the temple which Jewish scripture relates is representative of heaven above.

How does immersion in a Mikvah change a person? This can best be understood on the basis of another Talmudic teaching, that "a convert who embraces Judaism is like a new born child."

Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan, The Waters of Eden.​

The mikveh doesn't merely remove the taint of the inborn birth-defect. It changes the status of the person born defectively the first time so that through this rebirth, entering into the womb of the waters of Eden to be reborn a priestly person, the taint of the evil-inclination, or sin-nature, no longer affects the person so reborn.

Seen in this light, we see that the Mikvah represents the womb. When an individual enters the Mikvah, he is reentering the womb, and when he emerges, he is as if born anew. Thus he attains a completely new status.

Ibid.​

Rabbi Kaplan's next statement segues directly into the discussion at hand, Psalm 110:3. He says that when a baby exits the womb "he enters the world in complete purity."

From the womb of the morning: thou hast the dew of thy youth.

Psalm 110:3.​

The phrase "womb of the morning" רחם משהר is, theologically speaking, a direct parallel to Rabbi Hirsch's exegesis of the phrase פטר רחם ("closed womb") where (Exodus 13:2) God tells Moses that all who "open" a closed פטר womb רחם will be sanctified (made priests) of God. Almost no connection of Hebrew words or concepts is as important to this examination as is the parallel above since in Genesis chapter 2, we're told that prior to the original sin of Adam and Eve, sexual congress, there was no rain coming down to enter into the earth.

A morning dew (dew of the morning) came up out of the womb of the earth rather than from the sky above. Prior to the original sin, when Adam and Eve were themselves priestly individuals, heavenly individuals, born, or created, apart from sexual congress, there was no rain, no sex, no sin, and no non-priestly (non-heavenly) human beings; there was no need for the mikveh since the earth and the womb functioned as mikveh from the get go. There was no need for the rebirth the mikveh represents ritually, symbolically, since Adam and Eve were born, or created, without defect, the first time.

Throughout the Tanakh, rain symbolizes the male principle and the earth is the female, the womb. The rain entering into the earth symbolizes the male seed entering into the womb to conceive of the life that emerges from the womb. Rain doesn't exist in Eden. It's only after the exile that we're introduced to the rain, the male principle, that rules the production of life outside Eden.

Prior to the original sin, which is the original case of male/female sexual reproduction, the womb of the morning conceived, birthed, and feed its newborns not through the male principle, the seed coming from topside of the missionary position, i.e., from above, but through a virgin process whereby a "closed womb" פטר רחם was opened from the inside out, and not from the outside in.

In Genesis, after Adam opens Eve's closed womb from topside the missionary position (conceiving the murderous Cain in the process) he's exiled form the holy land, from the sanctified heavenly temple of Eden, and made to wander in the world outside the temple precincts. He's told he must till and water the soil, as he tilled Eve, and watered Eve's womb, in order to gain his offspring and his daily bread.

Psalm 110:3 appears to be speaking of those born the first time with the inborn birth-defect being reborn a second time, theologically speaking on the eighth day, at which time they receive one of the pre-established number of pristine priestly souls stored in the Tree of Life: these souls come not through the male organ, but through a process that's sanctified by the blood of that organ, a rebirth affected through Abrahamic faith, and in the blood of father Abraham's Gentile, or genital, organ; which is to say through the blood of the violent, malevolent, male-organ.



John